About Me

I am a Deacon in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, currently in my thirties, a husband and father of three, a graduate student in moral theology, & a teacher of various liberal arts at The Academy of Classical Christian Studies in OKC. I like British orthographical conventions.

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03 December 2008

On the Title of the New Blog

I imagine many of the people that wind up reading this may already get the title, but I thought I'd write something for the less informed. Logismoi (pronounced 'lo-yeez-mee', with the stress on the last syllable) is the Greek word for 'thoughts', but it also carries the connotation of 'temptations'. St Hesychios the Presbyter (8th or 9th c., according to the editors of the English Philokalia) writes, 'If we have not attained prayer that is free from thoughts [logismoi], we have no weapon to fight with. By this prayer I mean the prayer which is ever active in the inner shrine of the soul, and which by invoking Christ scourges and sears our secret enemy' ('On Watchfulness and Holiness' 21, The Philokalia, Vol. I, trans. G.E.H. Palmer, et al. [London: Faber, 1979], p. 165). I thought this fitting, since the posts will suggest my thoughts but also frequently represent distractions by which I am tempted. I certainly have not attained the prayer St Hesychios speaks of, and I think that will be evident in this blog.

[Addendum: There was already a blog with the simple http://logismoi.blogspot.com/, which is why I added 'touaaron'—'tou aaron' or, 'of Aaron'. But it seems this blog was begun with the sole purpose of taking the simpler URL so that I couldn't use it.]

[Further addendum: I have more recently written a much more extensive post on the concept of 'logismoi' to which I now refer anyone interested in greater detail on this subject. It can be found here.]